Supreme Court rejects plea to postpone Ayodhya hearing to July 2019

SC thwarted a determined attempt by Sunni Waqf Board and members of the minority community to postpone till July 2019 the hearing in the case for determination of ownership of the 2.77 acre Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi disputed land, and fixed February 8 for start of day-to-day hearing.

| TNN | Updated: Dec 6, 2017, 07:59 IST

Highlights

SC has thwarted an attempt to postpone hearing in Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi disputed land till July 2019.

A special bench also "prima facie" declined the demand put by senior lawyers that the appeals be either referred to a five or seven judge bench.

File photo of Babri Masjid demolition.

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court thwarted a determined attempt by Sunni Waqf Board and members of the minority community to postpone till July 2019 the hearing in the case for determination of ownership of the 2.77 acre Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi disputed land, and fixed February 8 for start of day-to-day hearing.
The senior counsel appearing for minority community members mentioned the political ramifications of the seven-decade-old case and claimed an alleged "agenda" and "bias" for the "hurry" being shown in deciding it while making a fervent plea to stall hearing by seeking reference of the case to a five- or seven-judge bench.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra kept the option of referring the matter to a larger bench open and said if and when such a constitutional question arose during the arguments, the court would take a call.

In the SC's biggest courtroom, which was packed beyond capacity, the bench of CJI Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer witnessed stormy scenes as a troika of senior advocates — Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan and Dushyant Dave -- took different routes to build pressure for adjournment.

The court had, on August 11, fixed December 5 for arguments with a caveat that no adjournment would be granted.

However, Sibal attempted to wriggle out of the binds of the August 11 order by arguing that exchange of documents between parties was incomplete, and that reading documents running into more than 90,000 pages and preparing arguments would take months. Finally, he brought in the issue of political ramifications. He said as BJP's 2014 election manifesto promised a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the hearing should be postponed to July 2019, by when general elections would have decided the fate of the Narendra Modi government.

"This matter has been pending in the SC for the last seven years. This is the most important litigation in the history of the nation. It will impact the future of India. A decision in this case will have ramifications that will go far beyond the four walls of this court. So what is the hurry? Let us get enough time to prepare arguments. Let it go before a five- or seven-judge bench. Put it for day to day hearing from July 15, 2019. We will not seek any adjournment. If the SC constituted a seven-judge bench to decide Justice C S Karnan case, this case being far more important than that must also go to a seven-judge bench," he said.

Dhavan and Dave chipped in with allegations of there being an agenda behind the "hurry" to hear the case, which was being taken up at the instance of BJP's Subramanian Swamy who was allegedly not the party to the original dispute.

After alleging an agenda, Dhavan said, "Hearing in this case will not be over till you (the CJI) retire in October 2018." Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for UP government, and senior advocates Harish Salve, K Parasaran and C S Vaidyanathan took exception to this argument and said "the matter has been pending since 2010 and yet the SC is being told that it is in a hurry to decide the case".

The bench shrugged off the arguments and pointed out that the original suit before the Allahabad High Court was argued for 90 days. "And you think hearing of appeals against the HC order will take more than 90 days? You can argue whatever you want, we will decide after hearing all parties. Let the hearing begin. You all are making non-serious arguments. If you want the case to be referred to a seven-judge bench, make it good by arguments," it said.

However, the trio of Sibal, Dhavan and Dave kept on repeating their argument about the ramifications of the verdict to argue that the matter be referred to a larger bench.

Dave said the court had constituted a five-judge bench to hear the petition by Kamini Jaiswal alleging the role of judges in a medical scam. "Why not for this case?" he asked. When the court remained unimpressed, Dhavan threatened to walk out of the case if adequate adjournment was not granted to prepare arguments.

Mehta and Salve termed as unfortunate Dhavan's "if you don't agree with us, we will boycott" argument.

At the end, it was Sibal who repeatedly requested and succeeded in persuading the bench to delete references to Dhavan's conduct from its order.

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